Multiple case study of nonprofit partnerships in North Carolina's coastal state parks

The role of nonprofit organizations has long been important in public lands management, whether at the local, state, or federal level. As natural and cultural resource management agencies face smaller budgets, higher costs, more visitors, and increasingly complex properties to maintain, this makes the fundraising, volunteer, and program support of nonprofit organizations more important than ever. The focus of this study is on five coastal state parks in North Carolina and the nonprofit organizations with which they partner. Staff from these parks and organizations were interviewed about state park-nonprofit relationships using a semi-structured, guided approach, and interview transcripts were analyzed using NVivo to identify themes and relationships. Results, which map current state park-nonprofit relationships in the study area, support existing frameworks about structures, successes, and barriers involved in partnerships while illustrating real-world interactions. The outcomes of this study are meaningful illustrations of the challenges, processes, and relationships that contribute to positive or negative outcomes within state park-nonprofit relationships in North Carolina's coastal parks. This contributes to an understanding of the value of these relationships and approaches for overcoming challenges, especially in the less-studied setting of state-managed parks.